Wrote this for a discussion elsewhere, and then I decided it made a great year-end retrospective on how far we\’ve come this year. Some AMAZING stuff has happened this year!
Just think back for a moment about how much indie/self publishing has grown, over the last year. Digital publishing has created something of a renaissance for writers. Self publishing, or \”indie\” as just about everyone is saying today, is rapidly growing to a dominant position in the market. It\’s not outliers, anymore.
In December 2010, the first indie book hit the Amazon ebook top 100. By March 2011, there were 37, and the number of self published titles has dipped below that only a couple of weeks since (Sunshine Deals). As of July, over 1/3 of the top 1000 Amazon ebooks were self published. In October, my own survey showed that *at least* 50% of the top 200 ebooks in romance, thriller, fantasy, mystery, science fiction, and horror genres were indie books (any book where I was unable to ascertain if it was indie or small press was marked \”not indie\”, which means there is probably error, but in favor of more self published market share, not less).
Based on the current data, there are *minimally* hundreds of writers making a full time living from their self published ebooks. Hard to say just how many, because sales vary and pricing varies as well (selling 200 copies a month of a $5 book earns about the same as 2000 copies per month of a 99 cent book).
Ebooks are already closing on 50% of the fiction market. They are expected to surpass that percentage, if they haven\’t already, in the first few months of 2012 (after some ten million+ new ereaders are opened as Christmas presents). Nonfiction is lagging behind, but \”text type\” nonfiction is also shifting rapidly.
In short, traditional publishers have lost a double-digit percentage of the overall US trade book market to indie publishers, and will probably lose substantially more over the next year as more professionals move into publishing their own ebooks. That would have been unthinkable three years ago.
Now it\’s reality.
It\’s still an incredibly competitive environment. But then, so is traditional publishing. And editors are now routinely saying at writer\’s conferences that they\’re having greater success scoping out new talent on ebook bestseller lists than they are getting new writers from agents. What does that mean? Indie publishing might be turning into the new slushpile. Even if your goal is a big contract from a big publisher, your BEST course to achieve that might be to self publish a few books, prove your mettle – prove you have a market and fanbase! – and then approach some publishers. Publishers are finding that a proven writer with an existing fanbase is a surer bet than an unknown.
EVERYTHING has changed. Everything we \”knew\” to be absolutely true in 2008 should be questioned today. It\’s up to us to each stay tuned in on the new industry, because most of the old chestnuts are no longer valid today. But it\’s also an amazingly exciting time to be writing!
Kevin, great post. As for the numbers of indie authors out there, I’m sure it’s in the thousands. In about a year I’ve sold nearly 3000 copies of my <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004HZX7W2?ie=UTF8&tag=derjcan-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B004HZX7W2"Format Your EBook for Kindle in One Hour book. I’d say each person who bought it is at least an aspiring author, if not someone who has or is about to publish. And I doubt that I’ve sold to more than a fraction of the audience for that book.
Thanks, Derek! Oh, I’m sure there are tens of thousands of indie writers out there. But – the real question major publishers need to be asking is what percentage of the market are indies winning? If a million people write and publish books, but no one reads them, then they’re not relevant to major publishers.
But the numbers suggest something altogether different is happening. 😉
Kevin, great post. As for the numbers of indie authors out there, I’m sure it’s in the thousands. In about a year I’ve sold nearly 3000 copies of my <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004HZX7W2?ie=UTF8&tag=derjcan-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B004HZX7W2"Format Your EBook for Kindle in One Hour book. I’d say each person who bought it is at least an aspiring author, if not someone who has or is about to publish. And I doubt that I’ve sold to more than a fraction of the audience for that book.
Thanks, Derek! Oh, I’m sure there are tens of thousands of indie writers out there. But – the real question major publishers need to be asking is what percentage of the market are indies winning? If a million people write and publish books, but no one reads them, then they’re not relevant to major publishers.
But the numbers suggest something altogether different is happening. 😉
It would be interesting to know how many ebooks major publishers would be selling if they were actually trying to succeed in it, instead of trying to prolong the life of paper.
It would be interesting to know how many ebooks major publishers would be selling if they were actually trying to succeed in it, instead of trying to prolong the life of paper.
@Derek
To illustrate your comment I just founded out that Jean d’Ormessson, an old time french writer, just sold more than 350,000 units (paper) of his latest book for Laffont. The publisher told him that he was the leader of their eBooks sales with 138 eBooks… http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xk4mn7_jean-d-ormesson-et-l-edition-numerique_news
To be fair though, remember that the ebook market in France is at least a year behind the US. So book sales there are going to be a lot lower.
But yes, they seem to be headed down the same road we have in the US.
@DerekTo illustrate your comment I just founded out that Jean d’Ormessson, an old time french writer, just sold more than 350,000 units (paper) of his latest book for Laffont. The publisher told him that he was the leader of their eBooks sales with 138 eBooks… http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xk4mn7_jean-d-ormesson-et-l-edition-numerique_news
To be fair though, remember that the ebook market in France is at least a year behind the US. So book sales there are going to be a lot lower.
But yes, they seem to be headed down the same road we have in the US.
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